Dreamwork Introduction

Dreams influence our outer lives more than we are aware. The function of the dream is to maintain the psychic balance and further the growth of the individual. We live life fixated on the external, material world, dismissing the “dreamtime” as primitive and superstitious. Dreams are representations of our inner world. The true significance of the dream becomes clear when we realise that almost everything we do, every reaction we have, every decision we make, every relationship we form, ultimately results from our inner dynamics. The dream-content should be taken in all seriousness as something that has actually happened – and is central to our conscious outlook on life and life situations.

The dream, emerges from the unconscious and expresses itself through symbols, in an ancient, universal language, transcending all verbal language barriers.

The unconscious is described as an enormous field of energy; the conscious mind being the tip of the iceberg that rises above the surface of the water, and the unconscious being the 95% that is hidden beneath dark waters.

The symbols originate firstly from the dreamer’s personal experience, referred to as the “personal unconscious”, which is why it is not wise to analyse any dream without knowing the dreamer and the dreamer’s circumstances as well as the dreamer’s associations about the dream images. The symbols can also come from another source common to all people, what Dr Carl Jung referred to as the “collective unconscious” – to be found in myths, religions, metaphors, etc.

The images in the dream should not be taken literally but as symbols of parts of oneself. The characters in our dreams show us, in symbolic form, all the different personalities that interact within us and make up our total self. Remember that the dream communicates something that you are unaware, that challenges you, to help you grow.